


When We Were Young

by GothamstreetCat



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Tragedy, Best Friends, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Dreams, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Friendship, Gen, Harm to Children, Horror, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loss of Innocence, Minor Violence, Molestation, Multi, Pain, Past Abuse, Rape, Rape/Non-con Elements, Ratings: R, Self-Harm, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Tragedy, Triggers, Violence, mature - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:13:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothamstreetCat/pseuds/GothamstreetCat
Summary: Taking place in the series Gotham, an anthology story based upon the young kids of Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) and Selina Kyle (Camren Bicondova), along with the rest of the cast. Stories range from Season One to the current season depicting strong scenes for mature audiences. When We Were Young dives into the deep memories and mistakes of people who were kids once upon a time.





	1. A Shot in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in Season One, Episode One of GOTHAM.

On Fear

It is a shot that screams into the blackest night of the longest day. A shot that disrupts the eerie silence created by the one known as FEAR. The sound of its fire causing FEAR to react, to jump in the skin draped bone and body of the living it chooses to sit inside. So perfectly nestled into a tiny corner in the husk of a soul, giving them symptoms of sweat and heavy breathing with an elevated heart rate. Racking against the major, most important organ with its fists so violent, banging on the heart in rapid tempo, slamming it against the rib cage causing bits to flake off into the stomach. FEAR making someone become so weak in the knees they could easily fall over into helplessness--feeling paralyzed and trapped in a particular situation where FEAR would then grow.

Attacking those old and young FEAR seizes the body all its own, twisting the whole brain into exaggerated yet sometimes realistic hallucinations. And while some remain tall and seemingly unphased by its presence, it is still there, and it lingers in the shadows, like the shadow of a body. Smiling a wicked grin for nothing is more helpless than a man who believes he is unafraid.

A man, in fact, is where it began. The shot that ran out of its hiding place and screamed into a sky where no one could hear and no one was listening. A singular man created by FEAR unknowingly among other people who were far lesser in the single moment where FEAR took a life. Stole two under the dead of night when all the calm and quiet after its deadly accomplice cut through the air like a knife and sliced the skin and body through. A clean shot under a canvas so starless.

FEAR stepped inside the heavy boots of the man, crushing gravel under the bottom of his shoes and causing the unseen, little mice and insects to run away in terror. FEAR who raised the hand with a gun and FEAR who spoke out into the emptiness of the four of them. But the Waynes stood TALL. Yes, it was Martha who eyes sprang first with the terror in her sight as she cradled her son close to protect him. And it was the son who was almost equal to his mother, staring in direct focus of FEAR; but it was Thomas who stood poised as always--trying to be the good husband and father to resolve the problem that would soon find its way to crumbling the alley beneath them and sending the entire life of his son spinning out of control. In that exact moment of single stillness right before the sound of shock--FEAR reached out with a cold hand and dipped into the body of each of them, reaching down deep until he got to the chest cavity where he wrapped numb fingers around their hearts and squeezed. Scared, yes, the fear had made them afraid. Terrified even. Yet they stood, and they faced the fear with their eyes, never quaking under the pressure while having no trouble in the effort to speak. To reason with FEAR.

However, FEAR could not be reasoned with. And it was in that split second before the sound that would end their life, the Waynes knew it was over. They could see it in the eyes belonging to FEAR, and the barrel of the gun into the deep black where the bullet lay hiding. Sleeping, and waiting for the moment to strike. The could see it, the end of that gun, the end of their lives and the one who stood to side like a shadow So much like an apparition, hiding dark like a shadow, but with skin as pale as the moon herself. She stood there tall and smiling, waiting for Thomas and Martha to join her in their final seconds; waiting as they looked at her, as they looked at the man, as they were looking into the eyes of FEAR. Just knowing that there was no way out, but hoping there was a way to spare their son. It was not his time yet, and the man in the hood had not come for him.

After that seemingly slow, but quick second, the bullet sounded, screaming against the peace and tearing against the wind right into the one who stood the bravest. Thomas felt the bullet chew through his system before residing in his heart, felt the wet street on his back as he fell backwards and the wet, dampening of his clothes where his heart was. FEAR has stolen his breath but kept him alive enough to hear the sound of his dying wife when she faced the twin bullet hiding in the barrel of the gun just for her. She too slipped from her son as their eyes carried her to the bottom of a dark place where she fell away and was gone instantly. Not having a moment to take a final breath or feel the damping of her own clothes from the chest.

Bruce looked straight into the man with a frozen expressing as his breath was becoming squeezed in his throat. As FEAR looked deep back into his eyes he raised the gun for a final time and contemplated ending such a short, twelve-year-old life. The man whose body FEAR had taken prisoner retaliated, for he could see something in the boy’s eyes that FEAR was blind to. Something good… pure and innocent. Something needed. Hope. And when he knew, FEAR knew too and together they lowered the gun in still, shaking terror and ran out into the street…

He waited until the numbness of his body had subsisted. Using everything within him fast to shake both his parents in the hopes he could wake them. In the hopes they were somehow still there with him. Their bodies shook from his hands, and their blood-soaked onto his palms as he smeared the red deeper into their clothes, not realizing he was almost bathing himself in the tragedy that had just defined him and taken him prisoner. Wanting to speak for just a second when his body ruptured at the sight of his father’s fading eyes meeting his. Unknowing that his father had been watching the cat from the scaffolding, still in shock, still shaking ever so little but falling away so quickly. He was able to reach the eyes of his son that where overfull of sadness and desperation, but he was not able to say a final goodbye as he fell away into the darkness of death, and into the guiding arms of the pale woman and his wife. Martha sobbed and Thomas asked their guidance if Bruce was going to be alright. She said yes before leading them away.

Bruce found strength inside of himself to stand--gazing down in the endless paint of red on the palms of his hands and the truth that was laid out before him. Sprawled at his feet over the back streets of Gotham city wearing nothing but the bodies of a man and his wife, appearing with the faces of his mother and father, though nothing more now but an empty husk of skeleton bones and skin.

Knowing the complete terror that he was alone his legs gave out because FEAR, dressed in the body of a man with no face, a couple of bullets, the sound of gunshots, and the long retreaded ghosts of his family. A scream escaped his throat that he would not remember but would always hear in his dreams when the lights when out. A scream he had no control over that was loud and angry, shaking his whole body ragged. Loud enough that the ravens abandoned their posts in their own terror. Yet somehow, there was not a single soul walking the streets that night who could hear him. And even if they had, they would not come to his aid because they did not care. Nothing more than a child’s cry being drowned away by the sounds of city sirens and noisey cars with mindless, dumb chatter taken on by the people.

He cried like a baby that only a mother and father could soothe… the tears dripping down his cheeks in fat, wet globs that his parents would not reach up and wipe away. Nor would they reach up with corpse fingers growing cold to get the snot dribbling down his nose, over his lips and to his chin. He wanted to scream again, but the cry was in his head only and no longer happening.

However, it was _that_ scream she could still hear all the way through the streets, that sent her running. The scream of someone in complete pain beyond any kind of repair. The kind that can break glass and rip houses apart, making even people with the best hearing turn deaf. Never before had she heard something so devastating in her life. Never before had she been dispensed with so much responsibility in a short period of time in the course of an overwhelming moment. Still, in a shock she could not shake she ran into people wondering why they could not hear the boy scream; crashing in each and every one of them with such force she was sure to knock them both over but finding her feet quick enough to collide into the next one. Not even being bothered to tell them to “move it” since she had no more voice because FEAR too had stolen it away so sneakily. Leaving her huffing and puffing her way through the streets, pumping her feet as fast as they would take her and then pushing them to do more.

She did not want to leave him, yet Selina could not stay with him either because something terrible had happened and she was the only one reacting fast enough to do anything about it, so she ran. Her heart was pounding in her chest begging for her to stop but the determination of her mind overpowered, begging her to go faster even though she felt her lungs were going to collapse and she would soon join Thomas, Martha and Death. She was unknown to how far she ran, eyes scanning her blurry vision fast until she found a glowing sign that read “PAYPHONE.” She stopped immediately, crashing into the closed door with such force she felt she might break it. The man on the inside jumped, scared almost to the point of urinating himself as the small girl burst into his private conversation of beginning phone sex with his mistress.

Selina screamed at him to get out like a crazy person, grabbing his coat with her dirty hands and shoving him out into the cold--cursing but too afraid to fight back. She slammed her thumb on the receiver, balancing the phone in one hand--thankful for her gloves--and then shoving her other hand deep into the corners of her jacket pocket for the last bit of change she had. Her hands felt something cold and round so she yanked the money free with such hurriedness that the coins jumped from her fingers onto the floor of the phone booth. She bent down and scrambled for a least one quarter. Snatching it up as fast as possible she slipped it into the coin slot, punching the simple three numbers in as fast as she could.

There was a voice on the first ring.

“911, what is your emergency?”

Her breath was hot, swelling inside her throat to make her choke on words that were most important. Tears found their way into her eyes and she wiped them away trying to find air so she could breathe.

“Hello?”

“The Wayans…” she choked, coughing back air. “Someone shot the Wayne’s in the alley by the movie theatre.” She tried to be as exact as she could. Then she hung up and ran away again.


	2. A Hole in My Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bruce endures a dream (nightmare) with a hole in the centre.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music by Daughter,  
> “A Hole In the Earth.”
> 
> Bruce’s Point of View  
> (A tie-in with “The Blade’s Redemption," (yet  
> To be published).

 

> _“In my own turn_   
>  _I'm trying to reach out I know I'll get there soon_   
>  _There's a hole in the earth here_   
>  _And we're walking round the edges_   
>  _You were flaunting all your open wounds_   
>  _I can't express them better than you.”_

The music sound is so loud in my ears, it’s the only thing I can hear above the high chatter of complete strangers accompanying the warehouse with me. A deep bass is pumping in and out from my chest, trembling my toes and fingers while making my skin vibrate--working with the lights and bodies jumping all around over the quivering floor. The energy is purely sensational; the music and feel and people on every single side of me. Emphatic, full-volumed sound mixed with an intense feeling that drowns out everything from the city. The noise, the talk, the crimes, the sirens, and the wails of the helpless is all nothing but distant ringing in the memories of the mind. And everything I feel is nothing but a deep exhilarating innervation pulsing in and out of every inch of my skin.

Hot, skin against skin, bumping alcohol soaked shoulders with my dance mates and friends who are as high at the nonexistent stars overhead, but it is something I no longer bother to trouble myself caring about. Just as I don’t bother to care that I’ve consumed well over my weight and age in alcohol--and some of my friends are already well on their way to throwing up. I don’t even have a clue about what I’m doing anymore but moving my limbs in such a jagged, flailing motion as I am overwhelmed with so much sensation and fake joy then anyone could ever ask for. The burning coated over my lips makes me forget… and sets me free.

My sight is blurry but the colours of the party remained clear pinks, blues and yellows spinning all around me. Flushing past in vivid swirls and blinding illumination. Faces change their shapes, and hands touch me all over but I can’t be bothered to pull myself away--even if it feels wrong. I should be afraid, I should want to push past them and flee into the safety of my home for the way they make my body feel, but all I want to do is pull them closer and let them touch me in inappropriate places. And even though _that_ frightens me, I am much too far away in the lights and the sound to care. Much too _high_ on the energy propelled from body to body with all my troubles falling through with every step I take, bouncing off the step of the next person.

Each drink of hard liquor is like salvation on my tongue. A poison that feeds desire and addiction swallowing up every regret I’ve ever had and all the faces of those I’m seeing floating away in the crowd. Every sip puts them further into my mind until I can’t see them anymore. Burning at first but then falling down as easy as water itself. Taking my problems down with it and replacing them with the crazy _want_ to do things I’ve never imagined doing before. Things that are so outside myself that almost make me _not_ myself. I am a body, that is me, but the insides are all screwed up. Like meat in a meat grinder.

A girl--Grace, I think, comes up to me and puts her hands on my chest. Her mouth around mine in a second and we’re kissing. Drunken, sloppy gestures of embrace that only escalate as the moments count beside us. I don’t exactly know what I’m doing, but when she sticks her tongue past my lips the vodka coated inside my mouth figures out what to do when our tongues began dancing together as close as we are. I don’t even think about any of it as her tongue overlaps mine and mine to her inside our lips--or the way her hands move against me, forcing us more together. The way I have to keep my eyes closed so I don’t see her face and the way I feel like I need another shot because my hands are against her bare shoulder blades shaking and afraid; it’s like I am horribly _aware_ but so far away from control. Out of control and unbalanced, the feel of Grace’s arms around me and the flick of her tongue somehow being the only things to keep me steady.

Someone passes me another shot, someone I feel as though I know, but I’m too dizzy to register who they are or what they’re giving me. But still, I put some distance between Grace’s face and she gives me space wiping her cherry lips with the back of her hand. She mouths something beneath her wicked smile and before I’m able to ask what she said the DJ playing the music pops another bottle and the contents are spraying all over our faces like acid rain. Everyone starts to scream and holler with an overwhelming sense of exacerbation and soon enough I am joining with them. The rain soaks our clothes and turns us wet; I turn to my drink that is half filled and let it kiss me the way Grace had, its kiss beginning to overflow over the rim of the glass. Like the tap water in a tub filling the basin. Fast and hot until it’s reached the very pinch on the edge, overflowing and spilling like a fire in the woods. Feeling better I finally open my eyes and stand in shock and fear. Grace is now gone and it is just I, standing alone in a wide circle of strangers. But they are not strangers actually… they are Alfred and Selina’s mother, Maria, dancing together in a warm, passionate embrace. Jim and Lee are there too… Grace and Tommy are there too, and ten-year-old Ivy Pepper with a much older Bridgit Pike--kissing almost as Grace and I were. And Karen is standing there too somehow… her skin covered in the color of blue ice… She leans her chin on Bridgit’s shoulder, begging for the same kind of attention. Alex… He too is standing there in the crowd with a familiar trail of blood running down his school shirt. My parents are there too--they are ignoring me and dancing close much like Maria and Alfred, but a bit more freely.

My lip is quivering and I try to take a drink to silence the faces and make them disappear again. I’ve failed to even notice that the music seems so far away now… One sip trails down my chin. Then another, missing my mouth more rapidly, trying to catch up quick with the first sip. The third time the glass falls from my fingers and smashes deliberately at my feet--shattering into deadly shards I’m sure someone could trip over and severely hurt themselves with. I look down to make some kind of gesture to remove the infraction--but I almost fall over and feel like I’m going to be sick. The translucent bit of drink in my glass has turned to thick stains of blood at my feet--spreading against the dirt on the floor.

I shut my eyes tight and press my palms against my temporal lobes, trying to block out the silence and the faces on my own. I open them foolishly and see the skeleton of Ra’s mocking me. Mimicking the pain I inflicted on him over and over. I shut my eyes again, breathing heavy with my heart rate going so fast I think I might explode. I realize then that the wetness on my face and the tears in my eyes are not from the intoxication that had once graced the air, but from the tears in my eyes from crying. Hot, wet drops blocking my view… I sink to my knees in despair and the feeling of an utter failure--wipe the tears from my face but they just keep coming and coming until I feel _a hand_ on my shoulder and come to the deep sorrow that I’ve never cried harder in my whole life. It is just a hand without a face or a person, I can see it in my mind’s eye, but I am too afraid to know, but I wonder if it is Alfred. If it is my father, begging me to come to him. Maybe even Jim, pleading that I see the glorious light once again. It is a comfort… _yet when I open my eyes again, it is all diminished…_

> _“It's like an old ruin_   
>  _Your father's a liar while my father's lying down_   
>  _In a hole in the earth there_   
>  _And I'm scared I'll forget him_   
>  _I'm still haunted by those open wounds_   
>  _I won't express them truly to you.”_

_… there, lying on the ground in the blood from my glass, are my parents._ There arms and legs bent in such a fashion that is grotesque… their faces so white and their mouths open. My father lying like a man gone to such waste in the ground that has manifested beneath my fingers. Fresh dirt digging into my nails when I squeeze my palms into fists. Fresh blood seeping from their mouths and chest… I’ve failed. I know that now. I’ve always known how I failed them, and everyone who I am trying to forget…

How I hurt.

I _scream_. As loud and piercing as I can muster with all but my twelve-year-old boyish lungs; until I am so red in the face with the tears residing in my memories burning again and my throat turning raw. _I am screaming so loud and yet I cannot hear myself. I am screaming until a white light shines down on my family and I am screaming alone because little by little, the faces have started to fade away--bodies and all. Disappearing into the dark and making way for the light…_

> _“I have so much hurt inside me_   
>  _Friend make sense of me, friend make sense of me_   
>  _I have so much hurt inside me_   
>  _Friend make sense of me, friend make sense of me.”_

I scream until I feel my heart might give out, but I find a hand to my chest and beg it to hold on just a little longer so I may scream some more. I scream for my parents, and I scream for the city. I scream for everyone who has ever lost a life and I scream for every life I have ruined. I scream alone until a stranger comes from the bright light, grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me through the crowd.


	3. When my Blood Runs Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bruce dabbles in a familiar and unhealthy habit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Features mature scenes containing blood and self-mutilation that might be upsetting or triggering for some readers. Set after the events of "A Day in the Narrows," featuring Bruce's further downward spiral into the darkness.

The incident was at a party. The first time though, I was alone in the bathroom with my father's old razor and the sleeve of my sweater pushed up to my elbow. However, the party was like a new standing, warping the memory of the first time, making it seem almost innocent. When I first did it--alone in the bathroom with my father's razor, it was nothing but a couple scrapes across my skin. If you could call them that. It was strange, how my father's instrument had been so pure and clean. Untouched, as if he'd changed it out but never got a chance to use it before he passed. Like he shaved with the old one, scraping over the stubble of his face--nicked himself once and then noticed the razor needed a change. He must have finished up before changing it. Tossing the old one in the trash, which was taken out that day. Long gone now.

Some of my self-inflictions were deep but not the initial intention. I tried to do it deeply in the beginning, but I failed. I was scared and nervous and when the razor bit its teeth down upon me I had to pull back because it hurt. Because I could feel. Even as I told myself that a bullet to the chest hurt a hell of a lot worse than a deep cut. So I cut myself a little, just to try it. Dragging the silver teeth over my skin as normally as I could manage.

My skin licked its teeth and opened itself up so the colours could kiss another. The blood came up from my arm slowly, filling up like a sink before spilling over. It ran a trail over my forearm in red. Pooling a bit on the white marble of the bathroom sink. Alfred caught me shortly after that. I jumped, surprised and scared for getting caught doing something I know I shouldn't. The razor abandoned my fingers with equal fright, finding safety on the floor with a clang. Spitting blood in its fall. Alfred said not a word and cleaned me up immediately. Respectfully putting my father's shaving instrument back in its proper place.

Now I am alone and remembering the party I went to with Grace at Tommy's. It was the same as always, boring with too many people, too many drugs and too much alcohol. Everyone was having fun, and I... I had to find a way to have as much drink in my body so that I was _able_ to try and have fun. Though, I wasn't having fun. I wasn't even happy. It was all fake, like a placebo. But I knew that the more I drank, the more I could pretend, the more I could lie. Especially to myself. So I took all my problems and all of my pain and made myself become numb with every shot, every bottle. Down my throat filling all the emptiness with buzz and excitement. I'm not sure what number I had consumed by the centre of the night, but I know I ended up on the couch, having drank enough to become consumed by my surroundings yet not care about what was going on. So clearly a room filled with blind gluttony.

It wasn't until Grace--who was sitting beside me--rolled her body on top of mine that finally caught some bit of my attention. The weight of her legs squeezing against mine on both sides was a bit uncomfortable but I tried to force myself to enjoy it like the other strangers around me with people cradled in their lap. I thought she was going to kiss me, our noses close to touching and I prepared myself for our lips to mate--but they didn’t. She leaned away from me and clutched her purse to her chest like I'd both flattered and offended her. Yet she was laughing, so I laughed too. She pulled something shiny out from the pocket of her bag... at first believing, it was a set of keys or a piece of jewellery. Yet I came to realise it was nothing of the sort, but a razor blade. A bright, shiny razor blade.

She flashed a smile that went along with the blade's shell, copycatting the spark and the gleam. And for a moment I felt my mask slip, though I was smiling it wasn't the smile that reflected Grace's but the smile of a childish boy who was too ignorant about the obvious things.

_“What’s that for,”_ I asked her.

She didn’t answer me. At least… not with words. She reached down slowly between ourselves and I moved uncomfortably with the corners of my mouth beginning to drop in a frown. I was nervous and I didn’t know what to expect--afraid she might touch me; but instead, she grabbed onto one of my hands sitting idly in my lap. Our fingers became laced together as she brought the cuff of my sleeve to her mouth and began fiddling with the button between her teeth. I can’t exactly remember why I decided to dress in an attire so formal, but Grace seemed to be having a good time toying with the clear button against her tongue. Her legs were grinding against mine as she did this and I was beginning to wonder if she was doing it on purpose. Eventually, she succeeded in unhooking the bottom from its reservation, wide-eyed as if I was supposed to be impressed with her ability to manoeuvre her mouth in such a way. However, I was confused. Was I supposed to be impressed?

_“Ta-da…”_ she mouthed, her voice sounded very far away. I believe I somehow managed to throw out the word _“impressive,”_ yet my brain keeps telling me that’s probably a lie. I could be wrong, but I just can’t remember.

After that, Grace pushed the cuff of my sleeve all the way down to my elbow, hold my arm close to her face. She procured the blade once again and there it had become honest with me what was going to happen. I should have reacted, should have moved… should have brought my hand up to her to stop her. Should have pushed her off of me. Should have opened my own mouth to stop it… But the words _“no”_ and _“stop”_ were too heavy on my tongue. Weighing it down to the bottom of my jaw… too weak and over encumbered to articulate the right words. My body had shifted again in strange discomfort, my skin breaking down in a sweat… but my pulse… my pulse somehow seemed to cry out for the mouth of the blade. Seeming to beg for its touch… breathing up and down slowly while creating a heavy thump that appeared to grow louder over the sound of Tommy’s stereo music. Deep down I remembered why I was there and that my body wanted to punish myself for everything I had done. Even knowing that, I was afraid. I wanted to scream but my lips stayed pursed shut even when Grace brought the sharp edge of the razor down to my arm--just centimetres below my veins--and the cold metal clamped down hard over my skin like an animal, chewing my flesh to create an opening for the blood to run down hot. A cry found its escape from the back of my throat, though I didn’t hear it over the music. The mark wasn’t too deep, just deep enough for the blood to run up quickly and build. Then Grace put her lips over the cut and began sucking the blood from my wound. Her lips pressed around the mark, her hand holding my wrist and her body digging into mine. Suddenly I felt like I was drifting… _sinking_ away into a deep blue ocean. Further away from everybody else. I closed my eyes and succumbed to tiredness. Grace… her lips and her touch where fading further away too… the music was going soft… my sight fading deep into darkness…

… Until someone shouted from above the water where my head was submerged. I had to come up for air in spite of not remembering how to breathe properly. My lungs somehow found the way and I opened my eyes as Grace turned her head backwards in a blur. A thick line of claret running down the cut she had made, a circle around where her lips were. I hoped she would do something to fix it, yet the trail made its way all the way down to my inner elbow and then some. Grace abandoned me, the weight of her legs being taken away made me grateful and I no longer felt heavily weighed on. Able to move I hastily bunched my sleeve onto my arm trying to apply as much pressure as I could.

That’s all I can remember. No recollection of how I found my way home or into bed with my pyjamas. The covers pulled over my head and the curtains closed to the same frequency so when the sun tried to raise over the skyscrapers and the clouds to reach me--it could not find me because I did not want to be seen. And when I awoke this morning I was struck with a sense of fear and strange sickness, believing I was not alone. My fingers shuffled themselves around the bed and I was relieved to find it empty of anyone else but just myself.

For a strange reason, I was almost instantaneously brought back to that one moment… and the moment before when I had cut myself as a child--the place where Grace inflicted me pulsing like a purposeful memory. How I was so angry… The blood, the sight and smell were so distinct. Like wet metal. When I saw it, all times I couldn’t help but associate it with the places I’ve seen it before, which made me angrier. Everything came flooding back at such an overwhelming rate that I couldn’t help but shake uncontrollably and think of the quickest release I could find. My phone nowhere to be seen, alcohol down the steps and in the bottom cabinet in the dining hall but I couldn’t risk seeing Alfred. I had to run.

So I came here, in the quiet and emptiness of my parent's bathroom. Unused and untouched at my request. There was no reason for the place of my parents to be tampered with. It’s unnecessary. I reached for my father’s side of the mirror, a desperate reached for the safety razor sleeping on the shelf. It woke with a growl… I shut the mirror with a gentle close, and without thought or question, I brought the now rusting blade to my neck, digging deep into my skin, deep into the jugular vein. Tearing the skin across my throat spilling the blood in a downpour of crimson over my throat and shirt. I’m soaked in it. It’s like I can finally breathe again.

I glance down and see the razor still between my fingers. Untouched, untainted, same as my neck, still clean and pure. Deep into my eyes, there is a person… I look down at the razor again, contemplating my next action I realize that I don’t care what it is. I don’t care how much I know the pain is going to hurt, I don’t care about the mess I know I’m going to make and I don’t care the irrational and _wrongdoing_ of my choice. I just want to hurt.

A knock on the bathroom door causes me to avert my attention. It’s Alfred. He knocks twice.

“Master B? Master Bruce are you in there?”

He goes silent, then knocks again. I don’t answer him, turn back to the blade. Tuck a few fingers under the sleeve of my sweatshirt and yank it over my elbow. Alfred knocks again, calls my name. I bring the sharp cut of silver just close enough to the blue veins hiding under my skin. My teeth grit themselves in discomfort as the razor pokes a hole in my skin under my rule, chews out a line. I moan but it’s low, choke out a breath when blood oozes from the escape, runs down the side of my arm in a desperate break to freedom. I remember what I did… and the small tiny-seeming laceration on my arm reminds me of what _he_ did. The mark created against Alex’s neck… I recall and again I am digging into my arm poking and ripping flesh. I remember his body being thrown like something so oblivious to the real world. Trying to catch my breath I’m screaming, pounding on the marble of the counter, banging on the glass, splitting it into pieces. Blood is failing…

I stop. Peer down. Again, standing still at the sink with blood dripping from my wounds. The razor is wet, and so is the counter. I squeeze the razor in my fingers, pinch it into my arm. **Deep** … I press the pain down harder.


End file.
